May 12, 2017

President Won’t Deny He Has Recording System in White House

Jeff Malet/Newscom via ZUMA Press

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President Trump says James Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations.” Well, are there any “tapes”? Does President Trump record conversations in the White House? Let’s ask the press secretary about all this:

Huh. You’d think the answer would be a simple no, but I guess not. Perhaps we’ll find out for sure when Congress subpoenas the recordings and Trump has to tell a federal judge whether they exist.

But if they do exist, I have some advice: just destroy them now. I never understood why Nixon kept those tapes around for so long. He should have just burned them and then claimed that they were destroyed in accord with standard record retention policy. Or something.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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